No. 1375 - New facts on consumer price rigidity in the euro area

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by Cristina Conflitti and other authorsJuly 2022

The study, carried out within the Eurosystem's research network Prisma (Price-setting Microdata Analysis Network), provides new evidence on the frequency and extent of changes in consumer prices in the euro area, obtained on the basis of granular data underlying the official consumer price index. These data, provided by the national statistical institutes, are available for 11 countries in the area.

On average, more than 12% of prices change over a given month. Differences between countries are relatively small, while sectoral heterogeneity is much more pronounced: prices vary more frequently for unprocessed food products (31%, on average, every month) but much less for services (6%). The change in the price is typically quite large: the median increase is 9.6%, the median decrease 13% (7% and 10%, respectively, excluding end-of-season sales). The median variation, in both directions, is smaller for services than it is for other products.

Forthcoming in: American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics.

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